The Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists

The Committee for Examinations believes that the ability to formulate a case is one of the more important skills of a consultant psychiatrist. Formulation is a formal requirement in the presentation of the Observed Clinical Interview Examination Preparing the formulation is one of the tasks undertaken by the candidate during the 20 minutes thinking time that occurs between the patient interview and the presentation to the examiners. The formulation is a set of explanatory hypotheses or speculations that link the findings on history and mental state examination with the putative diagnosis, and as such should precede the diagnostic statement.